Law Enforcement
Floor Speech
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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, with me today is Mr. Wesley Davis, one of my able aides in my office. I would like to talk for a few minutes about crime.
It is up. It is way up. The largest city in my State is New Orleans, and New Orleans is on track to becoming the murder capital of the world. In my State and in my city of New Orleans, we have seen a 136- percent rise in homicides, a 101-percent rise in shootings, and a 194- percent rise in carjackings. And this is not just a Louisiana and a New Orleans problem.
Baton Rouge, LA--Baton Rouge, of course, is my capital city--and Shreveport are not much better. And violent crime is also on the rise in major cities from the west coast to the east coast.
We hear a lot about Chicago, of course, and New York City, but from May of 2021 to May of 2022, crime was up 23 percent in Seattle. It was up 21 percent in Washington, DC.
And I would respectfully suggest this is no coincidence. For almost 2 years now--2 years, long time--some people in positions of authority in our country have been calling to defund the police, to dismantle the police. And they have been disrespecting the police.
Many of our public officials--not all of them, but some happen to be mayors in major cities--they believe that cops are a bigger problem than criminals. They do.
They believe that when a cop shoots a criminal, it is automatically the cop's fault. When a criminal shoots a cop, it is the gun's fault. And we also have prosecutors, district attorneys--not all of them but too many of them who live by the motto: Hear no evil, see no evil, and prosecute no evil. And we can now see the result of that attitude.
It is an anti-law enforcement attitude. Now, look, I know cops aren't perfect. I get it. Some of our police officers get out of line intentionally. And when they do, they should be punished. But do you know when a radical jihadist who happens to be a Muslim blows up a school full of school children, we are told don't blame all Muslims because of the acts of a few.
And, gosh, I agree with that, and I know the Presiding Officer does too. How come the same rule doesn't apply to cops? I don't understand. This anti-law enforcement sentiment, understandably, has resulted in lower morale among cops. Duh. It has led to massive resignations. It has led to massive early retirements.
It has in my State, and it has in most other States. It turns out that when you spend years vilifying police officers and making it harder for them to do their job, some of them no longer want to stay. That is not surprising.
In the city of New Orleans, we have fewer than 1,000 police officers. We need 2,000. This year alone, more than 100 police officers have already quit. That is around the same number of police officers who resigned, retired, or were fired in 2020. And these statistics are nationwide; it is not just New Orleans.
The Dallas Police Department is down 550 law enforcement officials. In Portland, OR, the department is looking to fill more than 100 positions for cops.
A headline from last week said:
As officers leave in droves, New Orleans PD's response times soar to 2.5 hours.
That is not the way our country should work.
Now, you can talk about defunding the police all day, and I don't want to paint with too broad a brush here--not everyone does. But too many people do.
But the reality is that defunding the police results in delayed responses to 9-1-1 phone calls. It demoralizes cops. It causes a lack of good recruits, and it causes our communities to be less safe.
I don't know why this is--if I make it to Heaven, I am going to ask-- but there is some people in our society--not just in America but throughout the world--these people are not sick; they are not mixed up; they are not confused. It is not that their mother or their father did not love them enough. They are just antisocial.
I don't know why, but they are. And they hurt other people. And they steal other people's stuff. And they can't live in society. And to protect us from them, we have to have law enforcement. It is just that simple.
So here is, in my opinion, what we do, because it is hard not to notice that what we are doing right now is not working. I don't mean to be cruel, but a lot of Americans look around at the people who are disrespecting and defunding the police--or trying to--and the attitude of those Americans is, look, don't bother to send in the clowns; they are already here.
The American people want and deserve better. What should we do? No. 1, we have to empower our cops. And when they make a mistake intentionally, when they intentionally violate their oath, they should be punished. But that is a small minority of our law enforcement officials. So we need to empower our cops.
As I said, we have too many people in positions of authority who really think cops are a bigger problem than criminals. We have to pay our cops. We have got to hire more of them. We have got to stand behind them.
When they make a split-second decision, they shouldn't be thinking, Oh, my God, I might lose my family and my home and my job. When they act in good faith and they have to make a split-second decision, we have to stand behind them. And we have to tell our police officers to enforce all laws--not just the big ones, the little ones. And we have to get rid of the ``hear no evil, see no evil, prosecute no evil'' prosecutors.
It is also important that we ask ourselves another question: Why is it that so many young offenders--especially in our inner cities--why is it that so many of these young criminals are more likely to grow up and go to prison than own a home or get married? Why is that?
Because that is true, and that is an embarrassment. And I will give you one reason: Because their schools suck. They do. Too many of our schools are failure factories. We need to fix them. We need to find out which of our teachers can teach and pay them. We need to find out which of our teachers can't teach and either teach them how or tell them to find a new line of work.
I can't recite to you the first six Presidents of the United States in proper order, but I will never forget, ever, my first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade teachers. Teachers matter. We need to have no-excuses schools. I believe every child can learn; I do. It is tougher for some than others, but I believe that every child can learn.
And I think we need a new rule: I don't care how old you are--I don't care--you are not going to get out of the third grade until you can read and write. No exceptions. None.
And also, I think we have to give our public schools some competition. We need more charter schools. We need more school choice. We need to empower our parents. Give them vouchers. Give those public schools some competition. It will make all of our schools better.
I want to end this way: Look, it is hard to be a cop. It is hard to be a cop. And cops are like all the rest of us; they are not perfect. They make mistakes.
But only a small, small, small percentage intentionally violate their oath. We need to empower those that abide by their oath because they are the ones keeping our communities safe.
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